MAN AND ANIMALS

Greymouth Evening Star, 21 December 1936, Page 4

MAN AND ANIMALS

■■ BREEDING MONSTERS. The word “progress’ is in such constant use nowadays that it might be well to consider from time to time precisely in what direction this muchboasted, advance is taking place (says an article in the New Statesman and Nation, London). As regards the members of the animal world at least, one is forced to admit that we have both exalted and degraded them. In a relatively few number of years the woif and the wild horse have become our obedient servants, the thin and stringy jungle fowl has been converted into an efficient meat-producing and egglaying machine, while within little more than a century, the ox has been improved almost beyond recognition. But it is well to face up to trie other side of the picture. No madness is too grotesque when committed in the name of fashion. By intensive breeding and selection we have speeded up evolution to a pace far exceeding Nature, but whereas Nature’s wildest experiments have taken millions of years to prosecute and have, in most cases, tended to some rational end, many of man’s attempts at "creation” have but degraded both himself and the animals concerned.

The dog, for example, has been fashioned into such useful forms as the wolfhound, sheep dog, etc., and on the other hand has been twisted and tortured into nightmare deformities. In the bulklog, the Pekinese, the King Charles spaniel, and the pug, the face has been so shortened that its unhappy owner is a constant prey to catarrhal and nasal disorders. The borzoi, intended to hunt by sight, has had its nose “improved” until this organ interferes with its range of vision. Canine hair has been exaggerated until such half-blinded atrocities as the Skye terrier have resulted. In the opposite extreme are the hairless dogs of China and Mexico. These are virtually bald from nose to'tail, and a curious corollary is that their teeth have also atropied. The only useful purpose that these repellent “improvements” serve would appear to lie in the fact that the Chinese hairless dog are eaten, while their Mexican counterparts are trained to lie motionless at the bottom of the bed to serve as hot water bottles for their 'masters’ feet. Others nations have done little better with some quite different animals. The Japanese waltzing mice, for exemple, are the result of deliberately perpetuating what was originally a form of mental disease. Modern waltzing mice, though technically healthy, are prone to waltz dizzily at the most unseasonable moments, and if permitted to indulge this unnatural trait upon a rough surface will wear down their feet to stumps.

SHEEP OF THE EAST. East of Suez, also, the Oriental love of fat has produced such extraordinaiy creatures as the fat-rumped and fat-tailed sheep. The former appears as though wearing a cushion lashed to its stern, while the latter has such a wildly extravagant caudal appendage that it must actually be supported by a small wheel carriage harnessed to its unfortunate owner. Bifds have suffered equally. Many modern breeds of pigeon are recognisable as birds only by their beaks

' and feathers. The modern “dragoon” [carries upon its bill huge fleshy protuberances; the “fan-tail” is forced to gaze forever skywards; the “swallow” has such vast foot-coverings that it can scarcely walk; while the “tumbler” ,is obliged to perform unending aerial acrobatics. Poultry has fared little better. What beauty can anyone see in the bare-necked fowls of France or the grotesquely headed “louklan” whose head has been made to resemble an enormous billiard ball, even more inane is the long-tailed fowl of Japan, whose tail coverts may in some cases measure nearly 20 feet in length. These birds are kept in high cages, and are only permitted exercise when a human train-bearer is available to support their extravagant finery. Wildest of all fashion’s whims arc the numerous abnormal breeds of fancy goldfish, which for countless centuries have been admired in China and Japan. The qpmet-tailed and veiltailed varieties offer unquestionable attraction. But the lion-headed goldfish suggests mumps, thd egg fish has had its fins all but eliminated, and the “tumbler” literally tumbles and swims with the greatest difficulty, due to an inherited spinal curvature. Most repellant of all are the “telescopic-eyed” or "star-gazing” varieties in which the organ of vision are so large and protuberant as sometimes to part company with the head.